Over Think
by thelinksthatconnectus
Summary: Like all things, Professor Crane sees his attraction to Edward Nygma as something to think over, until he has all the answers. Slight AU, Scriddler


He had never been one for Freudian thought. Fear only went so far there, and his followers were too avid for his taste. Jonathan couldn't be sure whom he preferred and he made sure to tell his students such. For all the devoted students in his classes, few seemed to not align themselves with someone. Most seemed obsessed with men, old, dead men that shone in the darkness of the past yet couldn't so much as hold a candle in this brightly lit, enlightened future.

Still, Jonathan had to admit that Freud had some good points. There were reasons he and his ideas had managed to stand tall for decades.

There was something interesting about psychoanalysis. He had heard thousands of speeches on it, even gave a few when his classes had a unit over it. There was something about it that made some of his students eyes light up whenever the very process of psychoanalysis was brought up, something about it that even revived old flames of curiosity in him that he had thought were eternally extinguished.

His students were the easiest to understand. Even with their eager desire to learn, most seemed to have nothing to hide and kept their thoughts close to the surface. No excitement in class could calm their hormones or help them make better decisions outside of class.

Like any good teacher, he watched his students, making sure that he knew more than just their name and grade.

It was harder with those that he already knew. His boss was just that, his boss, and beyond talking with him after meetings and giving him his paycheck, the two hardly ever interacted. His other coworkers had their own jobs to worry about, and though they themselves were no longer students, cliques still formed, groups that Jonathan never could figure out just how to get into.

Still, he had enough people to look over. His neighbors were odd people, and even odder once he sat down and analyzed them. Every interaction ran through his mind over and over again, like one turning back a movie to watch a scene again. There was always something new to discover in his memories, some former secret that had slipped under his nose.

His favorite subject had to be Edward. Edward, with his green suits and smug smile. Edward, with his cold eyes and quick wit, who always seemed to have a piece of trivia to tell, some hidden away fact.

Jonathan picked him apart, like pieces of cooked chicken from its bone. He'd been sure there was always something more to the man than his fast lips and angular facial features, but until then hadn't quite realized just what was so peculiar about him. He was a riddle of his own, even harder to solve than the many that left his lips.

Jonathan's mind, of course, was finite. It could only process so many thoughts and remember so many things before it even came to a stop.

He supposed that gave him all the more reasons to watch the other man. To "accidentally" bump into the man while getting his morning coffee, to call him more than once every blue moon, and to really mule over just what the answers to his riddles might be.

And if he thought about the other man more than a busy, focused man like him should, then who else would know? Edward was his own little subject, someone to study safely in Jonathan's own mind. If his thoughts did stray beyond simple curiosity, past the point of academia, then who else would ever possibly know? Really, who would? Not even Edward.

Only Jonathan knew. There was no way to deny it, no way to try and justify the way his thoughts strayed towards the other man's skin. Something deep inside him yearned to feel the other's touch, to know what those lips felt like when they weren't prattling off riddles, and to wonder what Edward's gaze would feel like if it were on him instead one of those crossword puzzles he was always scribbling answers into.

It wasn't as if it was merely the inner curiosity of Jonathan's subconscious speaking, despite what some of his students, and their dead inspiration, would say otherwise.


End file.
